


The Face in the Mirror

by EmlynC



Series: Legends in the Night [1]
Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Spoilers, Temperance Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28415454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmlynC/pseuds/EmlynC
Summary: ***contains SPOILERS for Cyberpunk 2077's Temperance ending***...He’d been a ghost haunting her mind, but now she’s the ghost—a husk of a body and a silence so deafening it makes Johnny want to tear his hair out.But he won’t. He won’t, because the hair on his head belongs to her, too.
Relationships: Johnny Silverhand & Female V, Johnny Silverhand & V, Johnny Silverhand/Female V, Johnny Silverhand/V
Series: Legends in the Night [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2120289
Comments: 12
Kudos: 119





	The Face in the Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> All the endings are depressing, and so is this fic!
> 
> I chose the Temperance ending on my first playthrough. Since my V was friends with Johnny, giving him control was the only real choice (what's the point of V getting her body back if she's going to die in 6 months anyway?)

He looks in the mirror, and V’s face stares back at him.

He sees the dusting of freckles over her nose, the curve of metal by her temples, the lotus tattoo on her neck. He sees her rose gold earring and matching teeth.

Red-black hair.

Purple eyes.

Rosy lips.

The face is hers, but the expression is all wrong. The makeup has long since washed away, revealing pale skin and sunken eyes. V’s eyes always had this spark, something serious and determined and angry and kind. But now…

Now they look dead. They’re unnaturally blank, glazed-over, empty. The kind of empty that consumes your soul, strips you down until you no longer know who you are.

Even when she was at death’s door, V had never looked this broken.

Johnny sets his mouth into a grim frown, and V’s face mirrors him perfectly. He’d been a ghost haunting her mind, but now _she’s_ the ghost—a husk of a body and a silence so deafening it makes Johnny want to tear his hair out.

But he won’t. He won’t, because the hair on his head belongs to her, too.

“ _Fuck,_ V…” he rasps in her voice.

A few short weeks ago, he would have been happy to have a body of his own, get a second shot at life. Hell, he’d tried to kill V himself in the beginning, when he found himself stuck in the passenger seat of some chick’s head and didn’t give a shit about anything except survival. Now, he’d kill himself a thousand times over if it meant V could live another day. He said he’d take a bullet for her, and he meant it.

But V wouldn’t let him.

He never planned on coming out of ‘Saka Tower—V was supposed to be the one standing here, not him. He swore he would save her, but it was too late, and V was done living on a countdown. For reasons that he will never understand, she thought a full lifetime of Johnny fuckin’ Silverhand was more important than six months of her own goddamn life.

She called it a six-month-long death.

Instead, Johnny’s in for a lifetime of hell. He’s reminded every waking second, in the most painful way possible, that V is gone, and he’s the one to blame. He’d wanted to do right by her, but he failed—like he always does.

The calls are the worst part—the ones he’ll never be ready to answer. He listens to every voicemail, and though he had never truly known them, each familiar face is a knife to the gut. Viktor, Panam, Misty, Mama Welles, Judy…they keep piling up, one after the other, and Johnny is drowning in their well-meaning concern.

He knows he should respond, and if he feels like a coward and an asshole for ignoring them, well, maybe it’s because he is. But he’s not the same man he was in the 20s—a self-deprecating voice in his brain reminds him that he’s not even technically a _man_ at all anymore. He’s trying to be better, for V’s sake if not his own. And he knows that V would never forgive him if he let her friends go on believing she’s still alive.

He just…doesn’t know how to do it.

Sure, enough of them know about the chip, but if they see his face…shit, he can’t do that to them. Can’t give them hope, only to dash it to pieces a moment later when they realize he’s not V.

Before he knows what he’s doing, a cigarette’s between his lips.

He freezes with a lighter raised in one hand, eyes glued to those slim fingers that decidedly aren’t his own.

V didn’t smoke. At least she hadn’t before he came along, corrupting her like a tumor and irreparably damaging her brain.

Johnny yells and flings the cigarette and lighter halfway across the cheap motel room he ended up in. He couldn’t bring himself to set foot in V’s apartment, not without her.

His eyes are drawn, as they always are, to the guitar laying on the springy mattress. It’s the same one he played less than a week ago, during the final Samurai concert organized by Kerry.

Johnny takes a few steps forward and ghosts his fingers over the strings. She didn’t deserve any of this shit. The guitar finds its way into his hands, and he begins to strum—lightly at first, then stronger. He fixes his eyes on a point somewhere out the window, stubbornly avoiding the hands that will never be his.

Then he starts to sing, and when he hears V’s voice again, he nearly throws his guitar at the wall. But he keeps going, even as his—her—voice cracks with barely-contained tears.

Because this song…this song is for her.

_“One last gig_

_Reach the sky_

_This is how_

_Legends die_

_In the place_

_Where I lost_

_Make a choice_

_Pay the cost_

_We are doomed_

_You and I_

_We are fucked_

_I won’t lie_

_Pull the plug_

_Drift away_

_See you now_

_Anyway_

_In my dreams_

_You’re still here_

_See your face_

_Feel so near_

_Care so much_

_Wonder why_

_It’s so hard_

_To say goodbye_

_Lost my soul_

_Lost my heart_

_Knew the risks_

_From the start_

_But still I thought_

_You could fly_

_This is how_

_Legends die”_

Standing at the foot of a crappy motel mattress, Johnny Silverhand stares out at the city, fingers hovering over the strings long after the last note fades into silence.

  
  



End file.
